A look at some of the more remarkable items found during 40 years of collecting all manner of recordings. For information on saving these files, see the top box on the right.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Now They Think That He Is Stupid

I am amazed to find out that, in the long history of this project, only once have I featured the aggressive incompetence known as Billy Grey. I've always loved the statement made about Billy Grey on the American Song-Poem Music Archives Website, which was: One can only conclude, upon listening to his unique treatments, that he was hired strictly to make fun of the customers' lyrics.

In the case of the first song shared today, Billy Grey is paired with a lyricist of similarly limited talent, who submitted a poem containing the key line "They Don't Call It Love Any More", but which the author for some reason thought would work better under the confusing title "Love Any More".

This has all the hallmarks, to my ear, of someone who wanted to use a line (or a word), then tried to think up something which rhymed, and forced that other word into the rhyming line, regardless of its musicality or other appropriateness. Thus we get lines such as the one with which I titled this post, and, even more memorably:

Don't cha think it sounds pathetic

When they say it's genetic

This is, of course, an excellent way to write songs. I believe it was the first thing Cole Porter suggested, when he was asked.

Seriously, I have no idea what the above couplet means, nor do I understand the point the entire lyric is trying to make. Who stopped calling it love? And what do they call it now?

The band's performance is also worth the price of admission. The drummer's showy fills suggest that he thought he was in another, perhaps better, recording session.

The b-side of this effort is "Foggy Morning", a sad, mournful tale of how everything was peachy yesterday, but today, she has not only stopped loving him, but has left him entirely. There's not much here for me to comment on - this is like at least 80% of the song-poems I listen to - bad, perhaps even incompetently so, but not entertainingly so, at least not to me.

2 comments:

I can't help but laugh at some of the lyrics on the A-side. The B is just a stone drag. My big question is how some shady company in New York state found a guy who sounds like the worst singer in his Tennessee home town.

To Save These Files

Divshare Issue

All files uploaded prior to March, 2015, were lost by Divshare in that same month. None of the files in posts prior to this month will work. I will be updating these broken links as soon as I can. Read more about it here.

About Me

I'm the father of two amazing young women, married to the most wonderful woman in the world, and I work in the mental health field. I play several instruments and record my own music. I'm a long time record collector, hoarder of unusual, rare or unique recorded sound, musical, spoken word or other, and am glad to have found this outlet to share some of my favorite parts of it with others.